IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/soudev/v10y2015i3p369-395.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Politics of Property in Land

Author

Listed:
  • Bhuvaneswari Raman

Abstract

Alongside the policy of promoting real estate in land as a vehicle for driving accumulation and financing urban development, the Government of India introduced a policy to provide property rights to squatters as part of Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) programme, an urban poverty alleviation scheme. Based on ethnographic research carried out in the Kathputli Colony, a squatter settlement in Delhi, this article examines the politics of creating in-situ property rights under the RAY. The article illustrates the manner in which property rights are produced and reconfigured through contestations over their meaning and boundaries. The making of property at the Kathputli Colony constitutes a fluid and conflictual process, influenced by several actors, including urban planning authorities, courts, non-governmental organizations and colony residents. My analysis of the process reveals how the planning authority mobilized a language of legal rights for squatters as well as participatory planning instruments to facilitate the transformation of land held by squatters into upmarket residential and commercial real estate. I chart how these manoeuvres have been contested by Kathputli Colony residents in an ongoing struggle to obtain land rights. Yet, the political space to negotiate such rights is curtailed by changing definitions of property rights and by closed institutional and legal framework underpinning RAY.

Suggested Citation

  • Bhuvaneswari Raman, 2015. "The Politics of Property in Land," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 10(3), pages 369-395, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:soudev:v:10:y:2015:i:3:p:369-395
    DOI: 10.1177/0973174115610186
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0973174115610186
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0973174115610186?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Donald Mackenzie & Fabian Muniesa & Lucia Siu, 2007. "Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics," Post-Print halshs-00149145, HAL.
    2. Varley, Ann, 2007. "Gender and Property Formalization: Conventional and Alternative Approaches," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 1739-1753, October.
    3. ., 2006. "Property Rights and Development," Chapters, in: David Alexander Clark (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Development Studies, chapter 97, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. C. Z. Bi & J. Y. Ma & J. Yan & X. Fang & D. Z. Yao & B. R. Zhao & X. G. Qiu, 2006. "Far-infrared optical properties of YVO 4 single crystal," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 51(2), pages 167-171, May.
    5. Dorothy L. Hodgson & Richard A. Schroeder, 2002. "Dilemmas of Counter‐Mapping Community Resources in Tanzania," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 33(1), pages 79-100, January.
    6. ., 2006. "Property Rights Reform," Chapters, in: Reforming China’s State-owned Enterprises and Banks, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Ann Varley, 2002. "Private or public: debating the meaning of tenure legalization," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 449-461, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Leonhardt, Heidi & Penker, Marianne & Salhofer, Klaus, 2019. "Do farmers care about rented land? A multi-method study on land tenure and soil conservation," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 228-239.
    2. Valkonen, Anni, 2021. "Examining sources of land tenure (in)security. A focus on authority relations, state politics, social dynamics and belonging," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    3. Clara Irazábal, 2009. "One Size Does Not Fit All: Land Markets and Property Rights for the Construction of the Just City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 558-563, June.
    4. Alonso-Fradejas, Alberto, 2021. "The resource property question in climate stewardship and sustainability transitions," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    5. Flower, Benjamin C.R. & Ganepola, Piyal & Popuri, Srinivasa & Turkstra, Jan, 2023. "Securing tenure for conflict-affected populations: A case study of land titling and fit-for-purpose land administration in post-conflict Sri Lanka," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    6. Hung, Cheng-Yu, 2015. "From regime change to paradigm shift: A philosophical perspective on the development of Taiwan's citizenship curriculum," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 65-73.
    7. Doss, Cheryl & Meinzen-Dick, Ruth, 2020. "Land tenure security for women: A conceptual framework," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    8. Lilian Muchimba & Alexis Stenfors, 2021. "Beyond LIBOR: Money Markets and the Illusion of Representativeness," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(2), pages 565-573, April.
    9. Ramin Keivani & Michael Mattingly & Hamid Majedi, 2008. "Public Management of Urban Land, Enabling Markets and Low-income Housing Provision: The Overlooked Experience of Iran," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(9), pages 1825-1853, August.
    10. Rao, Nitya, 2017. "Assets, Agency and Legitimacy: Towards a Relational Understanding of Gender Equality Policy and Practice," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 43-54.
    11. Leigh Johnson, 2013. "Index Insurance and the Articulation of Risk-Bearing Subjects," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(11), pages 2663-2681, November.
    12. Monika Streule & Ozan Karaman & Lindsay Sawyer & Christian Schmid, 2020. "Popular Urbanization: Conceptualizing Urbanization Processes Beyond Informality," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 652-672, July.
    13. Monia Niero & Charlotte L. Jensen & Chiara Farné Fratini & Jens Dorland & Michael S. Jørgensen & Susse Georg, 2021. "Is life cycle assessment enough to address unintended side effects from Circular Economy initiatives?," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(5), pages 1111-1120, October.
    14. Saurabh Arora & Naomi Baan Hofman & Vinod Koshti & Tommaso Ciarli, 2013. "Cultivating Compliance: Governance of North Indian Organic Basmati Smallholders in a Global Value Chain," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(8), pages 1912-1928, August.
    15. Leon Wansleben, 2013. "Dreaming with BRICs," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(4), pages 453-471, November.
    16. Loconto, Allison & Rajão, Raoni, 2020. "Governing by models: Exploring the technopolitics of the (in)visilibities of land," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    17. Peter Miller, 2008. "Calculating Economic Life," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(1), pages 51-64, March.
    18. Aleksandra Kuzior & Aleksy Kwilinski & Ihor Hroznyi, 2021. "The Factorial-Reflexive Approach to Diagnosing the Executors’ and Contractors’ Attitude to Achieving the Objectives by Energy Supplying Companies," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-16, April.
    19. Dawn Thilmany & Lilian Brislen & Hailey Edmondson & Mackenzie Gill & Becca B. R. Jablonski & Jairus Rossi & Tim Woods & Samantha Schaffstall, 2021. "Novel methods for an interesting time: Exploring U.S. local food systems’ impacts and initiatives to respond to COVID," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 65(4), pages 848-877, October.
    20. François-Xavier de Vaujany & Sabine Carton & Carine Dominguez-Perry & Emmanuelle Vaast, 2012. "Performativity and Information Technologies: An inter-organizational perspective," Post-Print halshs-00851315, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:soudev:v:10:y:2015:i:3:p:369-395. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.